Handheld electronic device with reduced keyboard and associated method of providing improved disambiguation with reduced degradation of device performance

ABSTRACT

In view of the foregoing, an improved handheld electronic device having a reduced keyboard provides facilitated language entry by making available to a user certain words that a user may reasonably be expected to enter. Incoming data, such as the text of a message, can be scanned for proper nouns, for instance, since such proper nouns might not already be stored in memory and might be expected to be entered by the user when, for example, forwarding or responding to the message. A proper noun can be identified, for instance, on the basis that it begins with an upper case letter. The proper nouns can be stored, for example, in memory that may, by way of further example, be a temporary dictionary.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.13/552,211, filed Jul. 18, 2012, which is a continuation of U.S.application Ser. No. 13/212,568, filed Aug. 18, 2011, now U.S. Pat. No.8,248,370, which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.12/852,889, filed Aug. 9, 2010, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,022,932, which is acontinuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/116,895, filed Apr. 28,2005, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,796,121, the entire contents of which areincorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

1. Field

The invention relates generally to handheld electronic devices and, moreparticularly, to a handheld electronic device that has a reducedkeyboard and that facilitates the entry of text in communications.

2. Description of the Related Art

Numerous types of handheld electronic devices are known. Examples ofsuch handheld electronic devices include, for instance, personal dataassistants (PDAs), handheld computers, two-way pagers, cellulartelephones and the like. Many handheld electronic devices also feature awireless or other communication capability, although other handheldelectronic devices are stand-alone devices that are functional withoutcommunication with other devices. Such handheld electronic devices aregenerally intended to be portable, and thus are of a relatively compactconfiguration in which keys and other structures often perform multiplefunctions under certain circumstances or may otherwise have multipleaspects or features assigned thereto. With advances in technology,handheld electronic devices are built to have progressively smaller formfactors yet have progressively greater numbers of applications andfeatures resident thereon. As a practical matter, the keys of a keypadcan only be reduced to a certain small size before the keys becomerelatively unusable.

In language entry applications, such as in a messaging or e-mailapplication, a keypad must be capable of generating substantially all ofthe elements desirable or necessary to form the relevant language. Forexample, in a language that employs Latin letters, a keypad must becapable of generating substantially all twenty-six of the Latin letters.In order to provide such functionality with relatively few keys, somekeypads have included multiple linguistic elements per key, such asproviding a plurality of Latin letters on each of at least some of thekeys when the keypad is used to generate a language that employs Latinletters.

In order to make use of the multiple linguistic elements on any givenkey, numerous keystroke interpretation systems have been provided. Forinstance, a “multi-tap system” allows a user to substantiallyunambiguously specify a particular linguistic element, for example, on akey by pressing the same key a number of times equal to the position ofthe desired linguistic element on the key. Anther keystrokeinterpretation system includes key chording in which keys are pressed invarious combinations to achieve particular results. Still anotherkeystroke interpretation system might include a disambiguation routinewhich seeks to interpret the keystrokes in view of stored dictionarydata, linguistic rules, stored algorithms, and/or the like.

While such disambiguation systems have been generally effective fortheir intended purposes, such disambiguation systems are not withoutlimitation. In certain applications, the function of a disambiguationroutine can be cumbersome if a user must expend substantial effort inentering language. One such situation in which this may occur is in thecontext of a word that may not already be in the stored dictionary.Another exemplary situation in which this may occur is when a word isalready be stored in the dictionary but is considered to have arelatively low frequency, and this may require significant input effortby the user to achieve the desired word. Also, a desired word may notalready be stored in the dictionary of the device. It thus would bedesirable to provide a handheld electronic device having a reducedkeyboard wherein the device might make available to a user words and thelike that the user might reasonably be expected to enter, with suchavailability being provided substantially without introducing asignificant processing burden on the device. Such words and the likemight, for example, be somewhat unconventional.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a front elevational view of an improved handheld electronicdevice;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of the handheld electronic device of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of a portion of a processor apparatus of thehandheld electronic device of FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a first exemplary message on the handheld electronic device ofFIG. 1; and

FIG. 5 is another exemplary message on the handheld electronic device.

Similar numerals refer to similar parts throughout the specification.

DESCRIPTION

An improved handheld electronic device having a reduced keyboardprovides facilitated language entry by making available to a usercertain words that a user may reasonably be expected to enter. Incomingdata, such as the text of a message, can be scanned for proper nouns,for instance, since such proper nouns might not already be stored inmemory and might be expected to be entered by the user when, forexample, forwarding or responding to the message. A proper noun can beidentified, for instance, on the basis that it begins with an upper caseletter. The proper nouns can be stored, for example, in memory that may,by way of further example, be a temporary dictionary.

Accordingly, an aspect of the invention is to provide an improvedhandheld electronic device that has a reduced keyboard and that providesfacilitated entry of language.

Another aspect of the invention is to provide an improved handheldelectronic device having a reduced keyboard that can store certain datain one or more temporary or other dictionaries for retrieval in certaincontexts.

Another aspect of the invention is to provide an improved handheldelectronic device that has a reduced keyboard, that identifies propernouns in incoming data, and that stores the proper nouns in memory forlater identification.

Another aspect of the invention is to provide an improved handheldelectronic device that has a reduced keyboard and that facilitates theentry of language without introducing a significant degradation inperformance to provide such feature.

Another aspect of the invention is to provide an improved method ofenabling disambiguation of an entry on a handheld electronic devicehaving a reduced keyboard.

These and other aspects of the invention are provided by an improvedmethod of enabling disambiguation of an input into a handheld electronicdevice. The handheld electronic device is of a type that includes aninput apparatus, an output apparatus, and a memory having a plurality ofobjects stored therein. The plurality of objects include a plurality oflanguage objects. The input apparatus includes a plurality of inputmembers, with each of at least a portion of the input members having aplurality of linguistic elements assigned thereto. The general nature ofthe method can be stated as including receiving on the handheldelectronic device a quantity of data including a number of languageobjects, identifying from among the number of language objects a numberof proper language objects, and storing in the memory at least some ofthe proper language objects. The method further includes detecting anambiguous input including a number of input member actuations, with eachof at least a portion of the input members including a number oflinguistic elements assigned thereto, and with at least one of the inputmembers having a plurality of linguistic elements assigned thereto. Themethod further includes identifying in the memory a proper languageobject that corresponds with the ambiguous input and outputting at leasta portion of the proper language object as a proposed disambiguation ofthe ambiguous input.

Other aspects of the invention are provided by an improved handheldelectronic device, the general nature of which can be stated asincluding a processor apparatus, an input apparatus, and an outputapparatus. The processor apparatus includes a memory having a pluralityof objects stored therein, with the plurality of objects including aplurality of language objects. The input apparatus includes a pluralityof input members, with each of at least a portion of the input membershaving a plurality of linguistic elements assigned thereto. The handheldelectronic device is adapted to receive thereon a quantity of dataincluding a number of language objects. The processor apparatus isadapted to identify from among the number of language objects a numberof proper language objects. The processor apparatus is adapted to storein the memory at least some of the proper language objects. Theprocessor apparatus is adapted to detect an ambiguous input including anumber of input member actuations, with each of at least a portion ofthe input members including a number of linguistic elements assignedthereto, and with at least one of the input members having a pluralityof linguistic elements assigned thereto. The processor apparatus isadapted to identify in the memory a proper language object thatcorresponds with the ambiguous input. The output apparatus is adapted tooutput at least a portion of the proper language object as a proposeddisambiguation of the ambiguous input.

An exemplary improved handheld electronic device 4 in accordance withthe invention is indicated generally in FIGS. 1 and 2. The handheldelectronic device 4 includes a case 8, an input apparatus 12, an outputapparatus 16, and a processor apparatus 20. The present exemplaryembodiment of the handheld electronic device 4 includes applicationsand/or routines resident thereon such as, for example, and withoutlimitation, a disambiguation routine and an e-mail client, althoughother and/or additional applications and/or routines can be provided.

The input apparatus includes a keypad 24 that includes a plurality ofkeys 28. The input apparatus 12 additionally includes a track wheel 32for additional input. Many of the keys 28 have one or more letters 30assigned thereto, and a some of the keys 28 have a plurality of letters30 assigned thereto. In the present exemplary embodiment, the exemplaryletters 30 are Latin letters, and the exemplary Latin letters serve aslinguistic elements for language entry into the handheld electronicdevice 4. It is understood that while the linguistic elements of theinstant exemplary embodiment are depicted as being characters,specifically Latin letters, the linguistic elements could be otherelements such as, for example and without limitation, other types ofcharacters, ideograms, portions of ideograms such as strokes, and otherelements that can be used in the generation of language. The expressions“text” and “word”, and variations thereof, are to be broadly construedherein and are not intended to be limiting in any fashion with regard toa particular language, a particular portion of a language or a means ofproviding an expression in a language, or to a particular language typeor format.

The output apparatus 16 in the present exemplary embodiment includes adisplay 36. The output apparatus 16 may additionally include otheroutput devices such as lights, speakers, and other output deviceswithout limitation.

As can be seen in FIG. 2, the processor apparatus 20 includes aprocessor which may be, for instance and without limitation, amicroprocessor (μP) 40 and which is responsive to inputs from the inputapparatus 12 and provides output signals to the output apparatus 16. Theprocessor apparatus 20 additionally includes a memory 44 with which themicroprocessor 40 interfaces. The memory 44 can be any of a variety ofstorage devices such as, for example and without limitation, RAM, ROM,EPROM, EEPROM, and/or other devices.

The memory 44 includes a generic word list 48 that has a plurality oflanguage objects and frequency objects stored therein. The languageobjects are, in the instant example, representative of words. Thelanguage objects and the frequency objects are associated. A givenfrequency object is representative of a frequency value that reflects,for instance, the relative likelihood that a language object with whichthe frequency object is associated is what is intended by a user whenthe user makes an input via the keypad 24. The memory 44 includes otherobjects stored and organized therein, as will be described in greaterdetail below.

The processor apparatus 20 has resident thereon a disambiguation routinethat interfaces with the memory 44 and the objects stored therein toprovide output in response to input via the input apparatus 12. Certainwords and the like may advantageously be stored in one or more temporarydictionaries or other dictionaries in the memory 44 and made availableto the user, such as when the user might reasonably be expected to wishto input such words. The words in such a temporary or other dictionarymay be accorded a relatively high frequency value in order that suchwords, if appropriate, will be presented in whole or in part to the userat an early opportunity during the text entry process to limit theediting effort and other input that might otherwise be required to entersuch words.

Although many uses for the invention will be apparent, one exemplary useis presented herein as being in the context of electronic mail. As canbe seen in FIG. 4, for example, a messages 52 has been received on thehandheld electronic device 4. The exemplary message 52 in FIG. 4includes, for instance, a recipient 54, a sender 56, and a subject 60for reference by the user.

Each such message 52 can be said to include a quantity of data which, inthe example of such a message 52, is comprised largely of text. Suchtext may include a number of language objects in the form of words,shortcuts, and the like that may include known parts of speech such asnouns, verbs, pronouns, adverbs, etc.

In a situation where, for example, a user enters a replying orforwarding command with respect to one of the messages 52, the user canreasonably be expected to wish to enter certain language. Such expectedlanguage might include, for example, a reference to something that hasalready been referred to in a prior message, for instance a priormessage in the same message thread. In some circumstances, some of thelanguage that a user can reasonably be expected to wish to enter can beascertained prior to entry of such language by the user.

Thus, certain language is advantageously stored in one or more temporaryor other dictionaries in the memory 44 for ready use by a user inentering language. While language is described herein as being stored intemporary dictionaries, it is understood that the language couldalternatively be stored in relatively permanent dictionaries. It is alsonoted that the stored data is described herein as being employed in thecontext of a response to a message or a forwarding of a message, but itis understood that the stored data can be used in any type of data entrycontext, such as in the context of using a browser, a word processor,and the like without limitation.

In identifying language objects that the user might be expected to enterand that may not already be stored in the memory 44, the device 4 andthe exemplary method in accordance with the invention advantageouslyidentify proper language objects such as proper nouns, for instance, inthe message 52 for potential storage in a dictionary. An exemplaryproper noun might include, for example, the name of a person, the nameof a place, the name of a product, the name of a business, etc., withoutlimitation. In the present exemplary embodiment that employs the Englishlanguage, a proper noun typically begins with an upper case letter. Inorder to identify proper nouns, therefore, the device 4 analyzes data,such as the incoming message 52, and identifies the words in the datathat begin with an upper case letter. The identified words can then becompared with words in the generic word list 48. An upper case word thatis not found in the generic word list 48 can then be added to atemporary dictionary 84 on the basis that the upper case word is likelyto be a proper noun. If an identified word is found in the generic wordlist 48, the identified word might be ignored and not added to thetemporary dictionary 84 on the basis that it is already stored elsewherein the memory 44. As an alternative, an identified word that is found inthe generic word list 48 may be stored in the temporary dictionary 84 ina form having its first letter being an upper case letter if, forexample, the corresponding word stored in the generic word list 48 is alower case word.

While the exemplary device 4 and method are described herein in thecontext of proper language objects beginning with an upper case letter,it is understood that proper language objects in non-English languagespotentially can be identified in other fashions. It thus is understoodthat the teachings herein are not intended to be limited to properlanguage objects having initial upper case letters. Rather, theteachings can be applied to any type of proper language object that canbe generally identified by the device 4 as being such.

The analysis of all of the language objects in a quantity of data suchas a message can be cumbersome and can consume a significant portion ofthe processing capability of the device 4, particularly if the messageis long. Proper nouns are a class of language object that the user canreasonably be expected to type and that have a good likelihood of notalready having been stored in a dictionary on the device 4. Limitingsuch additional processing substantially to words having an initialupper case letter, which would include proper nouns, thus advantageouslysaves processing power and provides enhanced disambiguation capabilitywithout introducing significant processing overhead to provide suchbenefit.

An example is presented in FIGS. 4-5. The message 52 includes thefollowing words with initial upper case letters: “Felicity”, “Are”,“Robbie”, “Plastix”, “Industries”, “Framble”, “If”, and “Koto's”. Wordssuch as “Are”, “Industries”, and “If” are ordinary nouns 68 that likelyto be found in the generic word dictionary 48. Such ordinary nouns 68are unlikely to become stored in the temporary dictionary 84, unlesssuch words are being stored as new words with an initial capital, asmentioned above. Words such as “Felicity”, “Robbie”, “Plastix”,“Framble”, and “Koto's” are proper nouns 72 and are unlikely to be foundin the generic word dictionary 48. The words “Felicity”, “Robbie”,“Plastix”, “Framble”, and “Koto's”, if not found in the generic wordlist 48, will be stored in the temporary dictionary 84 for use infacilitating future text entry.

In this regard, of the eight words “Felicity”, “Are”, “Robbie”,“Plastix”, “Industries”, “Framble”, “If”, and “Koto's” that wereanalyzed by the processor apparatus 20, three of the words, i.e., “Are”,“Industries”, and “If”, were ordinary nouns 68. Five of the eight words,i.e., “Felicity”, “Robbie”, “Plastix”, “Framble”, and “Koto's”, wereproper nouns 72. It is further noted that the message 52 includes atotal of thirty-five words. Only five words of the thirty-five wereproper nouns 72, and in the present example these five words are theonly words that had not previously been stored on the device 4. Theprocessing of only eight words, i.e., the words starting with an uppercase letter, to obtain the five proper nouns 72 advantageously requiressignificantly less processing by the device 4 than if the device 4 wererequired to process all thirty-five words of the message 52 in order toidentify the five words, i.e., “Felicity”, “Robbie”, “Plastix”,“Framble”, and “Koto's”, that had not previously been stored in thememory 44.

The device 4 can be configured in any of a variety of fashions to enableit to identify proper words for potential storage in the memory 44. Theexample mentioned above is directed generally toward the device 4identifying proper words by identifying words having an initial uppercase character. This can be accomplished in various ways. For example,the device 4 could be configured to identify words having an initialcharacter within the ASCII range &#065 through &#090. This ASCII rangeincludes the upper case Latin letters. The device additionally oralternatively could be configured, for example, to identify words havingan initial character coded to be within a certain range in the Unicodestandard or being among a predetermined Unicode set. Other ways ofidentifying proper words will be apparent. While the example presentedherein is directed toward the identification of proper words byidentifying words having an initial character that is upper case, thedevice could additionally or alternatively be configured to identify,for instance, upper case letters that are other than the initialcharacter, characters that include a diacritic, and the like withoutlimitation.

The first temporary dictionary 84 may additionally include frequencyobjects stored therein that provide frequency values for associationwith the stored language objects. Alternatively, the language objects inthe first temporary dictionary 84 may be associated in some otherfashion with a frequency value that is relatively high. In this regard,and as will be set forth in greater detail below, the exemplarydisambiguation routine employed on the handheld electronic device 4identifies language objects in the memory 44 and presents the languageobjects, in whole or in part, to the user in response to an ambiguousinput for the purpose of providing proposed disambiguatedinterpretations of the ambiguous input. The output oftentimes mayinclude a plurality of language objects, in whole or in part, listed insome fashion in a descending order of frequency value and/or inaccordance with other criteria. By associating with the language objectsstored in the first temporary dictionary 84 frequency objects of arelatively high frequency value, the language objects identified in thefirst temporary dictionary 84 during operation of the disambiguationroutine may be output at a position of relatively high probability,i.e., frequency, in order to make such language objects readilyavailable to the user. Such ready access to such language objects by theuser facilitates entry and reduces the amount of input effort that mayotherwise be required of the user.

An exemplary new message 64 in the form of a reply message to theoriginal message 52 is depicted in FIG. 5. A text input location 128 isindicated by a cursor 136. The present exemplary new message 64 includesa text component 116 and a variant component 120. The text component 116is output at a text input location 128. The variant component 120 is, inthe exemplary embodiment of the depicted handheld electronic device 4,output at a lower region of the display 36. The contents of the outputinclude a default output 124 and a number of variants 132. The defaultoutput 124 “Fr” is depicted as being output as both the text component116 at the text input location 128 and as the leftmost variant 132 inthe variant component 120. In addition to the variant component 120including the default output 124, the variant component 120 outputs anumber of variants 132 adjacent the default output 124 to providealternate proposed outputs.

In the present example, the user has actuated the key 28 to which theletters 30 “D” and “F” are assigned, followed by an actuation of the key28 to which the letters 30 “E” and “R” are assigned. These keycombinations could indicate a desire by the user to enter words such as“feed”, “deep”, “drive” and the like. When words such as this areidentified in the generic word list 48, a portion of the word can beoutput as a variant 132 based in order of descending frequency. However,in the present example the word “Framble” has previously been identifiedas being a proper name and has already been added to the temporarydictionary 84. “Framble” has also been associated with a frequencyobject having a relatively high frequency value. In the present example,“Framble” is associated with a frequency object having a higherfrequency value than any of the words in the generic word list 48 thatcorrespond with the aforementioned two keystrokes. As such, “Fr” islisted as the default output 160.

In this regard, the word “Framble” is made available to the user tofacilitate text entry. The word “Framble” was made available to the userbecause it previously had been identified as a proper noun 72 and wasadded as such to the temporary dictionary 84. The word “Framble”advantageously was identified by the processor apparatus 20 in thecontext of analyzing eight words from the message 52, rather than in thecontext of analyzing all thirty-five words of the message 52. The device4 and the method described herein thus facilitate text entry, and thisfeature is provided without introducing significant additionalprocessing overhead to the device 4.

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor patent disclosure, as it appears in the U.S. Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightswhatsoever.

While specific embodiments of the invention have been described indetail, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that variousmodifications and alternatives to those details could be developed inlight of the overall teachings of the disclosure. Accordingly, theparticular arrangements disclosed are meant to be illustrative only andnot limiting as to the scope of the invention which is to be given thefull breadth of the claims appended and any and all equivalents thereof.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for use in a handheld electronic device,the handheld electronic device including a memory storing a plurality oflanguage objects, the method comprising: identifying from received dataa proper language object that has an upper case character as a firstcharacter; determining that the identified proper language objectincludes a character set matching one of the stored language objects,wherein the stored language objects include a non-upper case characteras the first character; and storing the identified proper languageobject in the memory.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:identifying a language object that is a noun.
 3. The method of claim 1,further comprising: identifying a language object having an initialportion that corresponds with a code designation within a predeterminedrange of code designations.
 4. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: identifying a language object having an initial characterwithin a predetermined ASCII range.
 5. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: identifying a language object having an initial characterwithin the ASCII range &#065 through &#090.
 6. The method of claim 1,further comprising: detecting at least one of a replying input and aforwarding input; and responsive to said detecting, performing theidentifying of the proper language object and the storing of theidentified proper language object.
 7. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: associating a frequency object with the stored properlanguage object.
 8. A handheld electronic device comprising: aprocessor; and a memory storing a plurality of language objects and anumber of routines which, when executed by the processor, cause thehandheld electronic device to perform operations comprising: identifyingfrom received data a proper language object that has an upper casecharacter as a first character; determining that the identified properlanguage object includes a character set matching one of the storedlanguage objects, wherein the stored language objects include anon-upper case character as the first character; and storing theidentified proper language object in the memory.
 9. The handheldelectronic device of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise:identifying a language object that is a noun.
 10. The handheldelectronic device of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise:identifying a language object having an initial portion that correspondswith a code designation within a predetermined range of codedesignations.
 11. The handheld electronic device of claim 8, wherein theoperations further comprise: identifying a language object having aninitial character within a predetermined ASCII range.
 12. The handheldelectronic device of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise:identifying a language object having an initial character within theASCII range &#065 through &#090.
 13. The handheld electronic device ofclaim 8, wherein the operations further comprise: detecting at least oneof a replying input and a forwarding input; and responsive to saiddetecting, performing the identifying of the proper language object andthe storing of the identified proper language object.
 14. The handheldelectronic device of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise:associating a frequency object with the stored proper language object.